Canadian Horror Blog: Asylum – Episode 1

American Horror Story is an absolutely insane show. There is no other word to describe it. It’s insane. So it’s fitting that the second season comes attached with the subtitle “Asylum”, because that’s exactly where this bipolar show belongs. Don’t believe me?

The episodes (and the season) opens with Adam Levine being the BIGGEST DOUCHEBAG POSSIBLE. “Admit it, I’m the best you’ve ever had”. Ugh. Adam Levine, are you acting? Is this a character? Apparently he and his wife are taking a “haunted honey moon tour” over the course of which they visit the 12 most haunted places in America and bang each other’s brains out. Their words, not mine. Their last stop is Briarcliff Mental Institution. Adam Levine’s slutty slut wife is also a horror freak, so she’s on her iPhone the entire time providing a nice Briarcliff info dump for the viewer. The couple finds a room with a doctor’s table and immediately decide that they MUST have sex upon it. “Strap me in!” she says. As Adam Levine pulls down his pants, he says “Ready for your injection?” BEFORE THEY HAVE SEX HE SAYS “READY FOR YOUR INJECTION?” READY FOR YOUR INJECTION. I’m not making this up you guys. Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk made this up. Suddenly, they hear a noise and redress themselves before going to investigate. She goes “Maybe it’s Bloody Face” (a serial killer who happens to be Briarcliff’s most famous patient) and he goes “Or maybe it’s just old pipes” and she says “You can totally put it in my ass right now”. K What. Is. This. Show. Even. They reach a door with a mail slot (it’s not a mail slot, it’s probably a slot for something at an asylum but I don’t care) and Adam Levine puts his hand in it and pretends to get pulled by something and scares his wife. “You are such a prick” she says. “Speaking of which” he replies. One track mind guys. “Do it again and I’ll blow you”. So of course Adam Levine does it again, while she blows him, and OF COURSE his arm gets ripped off, while she blows him. THIS IS AMERICAN HORROR STORY YOU GUYS! WELCOME TO THE ASYLUM!

Welcome to Briarcliff

I don’t know what all that was about because now we’re back in 1964 where I believe the majority of this season takes place. That creepy dead guy from season one of American Horror Story (which narrows it down NOT AT ALL because that was EVERY CHARACTER in season one of American Horror Story) is working at a gas station/car repair shop and a bunch of hooligans bust in and one of them says something about “Mmm, chocolate”, but it’s not that kind of chocolate that creepy gas station attendant is yearning for because his wife is BLACK! Scandalous. I get the chocolate comment now. I didn’t understand it at the time, but clearly it was meant to be threatening. Anyways… gas station attendant goes home and has sex with his chocolatey wife and I’m going to see how long I can go before I use a single character’s name. The gas dude sees a light outside of his window and thinks it’s his jackass friends come to cause trouble and HOLY **** IT’S ALIENS WHAT IS THIS SHOW IT HAS ONLY BEEN 11 MINUTES?! Chocolate wife and her husband get abducted and THAT’S THE END OF THE SCENE! I told you this was going to be crazy.

Now Sarah Paulson, who is a reporter, is visiting Briarcliff and OH MY GOSH SHE IS ATTACKED BY SOME KIND OF DEMONIC BEAST CALLED HEFFER! Oh, wait, it’s just a patient. Yikes. Sarah Paulson gets cut on a flower and she’s all like “Don’t worry, she’s just trying to make friends” and the nun is like “Uh uh girl, Heffer drowned her sister’s baby and cut her ears off”. I was right. Sarah Paulson climbs the “Stairway to Heaven”, as the head nun calls it, and wouldn’t you know it, the head nun is Jessica Lange. Oh shoot, I just realized I called the demon beast Heffer and I finally used a character’s name. Oh well. I guess I can start referring to Sarah Paulson as Lana Winters and Jessica Lange as Sister Jude. Lana Winters has come to Briarcliff to interview Sister Jude about the institute, but like any good reporter, what she really wants the scoop on is BLOODY FACE!!!!!!! The infamous (apparently) serial killer who wears the faces of the women he kills is being transported to the hospital that day and “Miss Lana Banana” wants three minutes with him. And here he is, being pulled out of the car and up the steps. His face is being hid from us because HOLY CRAP BLOODY FACE IS GAS STATION ATTENDANT! WHAT? WHAT?! Well, I didn’t see that coming (Now that we’re using names and all, his is Kit, by the way).

Meet Heffer

Of course, as to be expected, Kit denies killing anyone. He insists that he was abducted by aliens. Sister Jude is having none of it, however. She asks him if “her dark meat slid off the bones easier than the others”, so I guess Kit’s wife was one of the victims. He lashes out at her, and in turn, she lashes out at him. And by that I mean she lashes his ass. He gets asslashed. Put it in the dictionary. Now that that’s over with, Kit is free to wander the asylum and meet some of the charismatic denizens that he’ll be sharing living quarters with. Chloe Sevigny is some kind of sex-addict who wants to “cure” him. Then there’s some sane girl who tells him not to turn off the weird… german song? Is it german? I don’t care. Apparently it has to stay on, as long as the common room is open. Rules, she says. Lots of rules. You guys, this is an awful asylum. Kit’s been in there two minutes and he’s already gotten into a fight. I don’t think anyone is getting better in here. That’s probably the point. Kit beats on the guy who makes a comment about him slicing up his wife and he gets locked away, but it’s okay, because sane girl has brought him food. Her name is Grace, which is not at ALL subtle.

Meanwhile, a patient has died. Apparently it was the black guy playing checkers? Sister Jude is furious. She goes to visit Dr. Arthur Arden, played by James Cromwell. Let’s just call him James Cromwell, okay? Sister Jude is furious because apparently 4 patients have gone missing while under his supervision. He claims they died. Sister Jude isn’t satisfied. How convenient that all of the patients have been cremated. How convenient that none of them have had families who cared about them. Something fishy is going on and Sister Jude means to get to the bottom of it. She warns James Cromwell that she’ll ALWAYS win against the patriarchal male, whatever THAT means.

Lana Winters is apparently a lesbian with Clea DuVall, who I can’t STAND. Oh, and they’re smoking pot. The 60’s you guys! Wait, I thought that they smoked pot in the 70’s? TV HAS LIED TO ME. AGAIN.

Sister Jude is now having dinner with Voldemort. I mean Joseph Fiennes. I mean Monsignor Timothy Howard, according to Wikipedia. You guys, Joseph Fiennes kind of looks like he’s related to Adam Levine. Has anyone ever noticed that? I bet it’s nothing. But what if… Nah. This show isn’t THAT crazy. Or IS IT? It’s not. OR IS IT. Sister Jude and Voldemort are arguing about Dr. Arden. She disapproves of his methods, but Voldemort claims that it was God who invented science and that this is a time in which anything can happen. He wants the institution to become so prominent that he’s asked to become Cardinal of New York. Apparently it’s Voldemort’s intention to become the first Anglo-American pope? Ambitious. But then again, aren’t all Slytherins? This conversation has apparently gotten Sister Jude all hot and bothered because she’s not fantasizing about taking off her habit and engaging in the “habit” with Voldemort himself. SCANDALOUS! Everything about this show is scandalous.

“Do you hear them? It sounds like they’re getting hungrier”. WHAT IS GETTING HUNGRIER? Dr. Arden gives Sister Mary Eunice (who I have yet to mention because I am nothing if not not thorough) some meat to feed… whatever it is that is hungry in the woods outside of the asylum. As she runs away, she comes across Lana Winters who is SNOOPING! What a snoop! They run away. I know that that’s an awkward way to end this paragraph, but that’s kind of what happened.

Dr. Arden is now paying a visit to Kit. “You don’t belong in here. Not when there’s so much to learn”. And… what? Now we’re back in present day. I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THIS WAS A THING! Adam Levine’s arm falls on the floor. Slutty slutty slut wife is now trying to find help. As she runs down a hall, the show transition back to the past where Lana Winters and Sister Mary are travelling through the same hall. Lana wants to know what Sister Mary was up to. Whatever it is, it’s being kept from sister Jude. Meanwhile, Dr. Arden-WHOOPS-I mean James Cromwell is about to being experimenting on Kit. We’re cutting between all the characters right now. Sister Mary just had… poo thrown on her face? I think? Lana is now alone in a hall with the patients. She catches Chloe Sevigny giving a blowjob to one of the hospital workers. WHOOPS. Uh oh, Sister Jude is checking on the inmates. Lana pulls herself into a cell to hide. One of the inmates is masturbating because what would American Horror Story be without masturbation? I’ll tell you – it would be NOTHING. It looks like Dr. Arden is about to cut into Kit’s head. Without anesthesia, of course. Cromwell’s going all clockwork orange on Kit while he has visions of his abduction. Cromwell has found something in Kit’s neck. It’s some kind of alien device. AND IT TURNS INTO A SPIDER THING! It’s a walking microchip! Meanwhile, Lana is still looking for Kit. She’s persistent, you’ve got to give her that. She reaches the solitary confinement cell, opens the slot, and is grabbed by a gross looking hand. SHE GOT LEVINE’D!

Sister Jude is furious with Sister Mary. Sister Jude is VERY manipulative. She knows exactly how to feed on Sister Mary’s guilt, to the point where Mary herself goes and gets a bigger switch to be hit with. Is that what it’s called? A switch? Or maybe it’s just a cane? I’m not up on my BDSM tools.

Now Sister Jude is visiting Lana Winters. She’s locked in a hospital bed. This doesn’t look good. “You’ve got a long recovery ahead of you”. Because she needs her homosexuality to be cured, OBVIOUSLY. Looks like Lana’s in it for the long haul. Sister Jude is visiting Clea DuVall to tell her the bad news. If she’s going to keep her “dirty” little secret, Clea’s got no choice but to sign a statement saying that Lana needs to remain locked up in Briarcliff for treatment. Bad situation for all involved.

Following her encounter with Lana, Sister Jude discovers Dr. Arden scrubbing a room clean. There are scratch marks all over the wall. It looks like something was living in there, but Dr. Arden isn’t saying a word. MORE SECRETS! And will you look at that, it’s the same room that Adam Levine is lying in in the present day. Slutty slutty bang bang (I’ve been building to that joke for a loooong time) is running down a hall, when out of nowhere appears… BLOODY FACE (or something resembling Bloody Face)! And… that’s all folks.

The aptly-named Bloody Face

Wow. What a scattered episode. Sex. Aliens. Serial killers. MYSTERIES! I don’t know guys. Briarcliff is certainly a fantastic setting for a television show and there are certainly a lot of talented actors involved in this macabre masquerade, but will it all coalesce into a solid season of television? I have no idea. There are a lot of plot lines and a lot of ideas to be found in this hour. I will say that I’m certainly intrigued, although that’s partially because I’m eager to see just how batshit insane this show can get.

I originally wasn’t intending to “live-blog” this show, but it just sort of happened. Too many ridiculous things happened in those first 5 minutes. Let me know if you want me to continue in this style or not and I will accommodate. Until next time… “You can totally put it in my ass right now”.